


Step Forward

by Aluxra



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 06:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12882084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aluxra/pseuds/Aluxra
Summary: My contribution to CLASSIFIED: A Blackwatch ZineSet during Genji's early training, where Gabriel has to give him a verbal kick up the ass to get him to do anything.





	Step Forward

Gabriel watched Genji tumble to the floor in a crumpled heap, his sword spinning from his hand. Athena concluded the simulation, and the dummy bots slumped into standby mode, returning to their stations. Gabriel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration as the simulation results popped up in front of him. He didn’t need them to tell him what he already knew. Genji’s assessments all read the same.

The safety doors unlocked, and he entered the simulation room without sparing a glance at Genji dragging himself to his feet and retrieving his sword.

“Have I fulfilled my obligation to these pointless exercises yet, commander?” Genji sneered, sheathing his sword with a sharp click.

Gabriel ignored him, scratching his cheek and scanning the datapad in his hands. Locking the screen, he slid it into the pouch on his belt and pulled up the control commands from behind the screen on the wall. “Again, agent.”

“You are wasting your time.”

“Is that so?” Gabriel said, only half paying attention as he reset the simulation.

“This body is wrong,” Genji said. The skin on Gabriel’s neck prickled under the glare burning into the back of his head. He paused, cocking his head as he considered the statement, before he turned to face Genji, folding his arms across his chest.

“Are you saying the cybernetics aren’t operating properly?” he asked. “Because that’s what these simulations are for—to check what adjustments are needed before you are fit to go out into the field. _Again_ , agent.”

“Your scientists made a mistake,” Genji tried again. He looked down at himself in disgust before raising his eyes to meet Gabriel’s.

Gabriel recognised the anger in them, even from halfway across the room, the kind that wanted an outlet but found none adequate. He’d seen it staring back at him from the mirror, eyes set in a gaunt face when round after round of injections caused his stomach to rebel. He’d seen it in a face that looked too young to be able to contain it, dragged in from some squalid shack off the back of Route 66.

“Whatever any of you hoped to accomplish, you failed,” Genji spat. “You wasted your time and your resources on a weapon that you can’t use.”

Silence stretched between them.

Gabriel shrugged. “Okay.”

Genji jerked back as if struck before he quickly composed himself, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“Okay?” he repeated.

“You’re dismissed,” Gabriel said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll send the results up to the labs and they’ll notify you of further consultations with them.”

Genji continued to stare at him. Gabriel raised his eyebrows, gesturing to the door again.

“Well? Get going, Shimada.”

He turned his attention back to the control panel. Behind him, Genji finally moved, slowly making his way to the door.

“We’re done here?” he asked as he drew level with Gabriel, uncertain.

“Yep,” Gabriel replied mildly, tracking Genji out the corner of his eye. He paused, waiting until Genji was halfway out the door. “The evaluation just confirms everything we had on your file.”

Genji stopped.

Gabriel waited patiently as Genji stood rooted to the spot, indecisive, before he pivoted on his heel and drew level with Gabriel once more.

“What. Does. My file. Say?”

“Lack of discipline and control, mostly,” Gabriel replied, almost bored. “Lacklustre motivation and commitment to a task, above average skill in weaponry and combat but no drive to utilise it to full potential… You’re nothing but a rich playboy. You only care about drinking and sex while your family name does the hard work—”

The steel blade pressed against his throat cut him off, cool and razor sharp against the skin. Unsurprised, Gabriel carefully tilted his head to meet Genji’s eyes as they blazed under the lip of his helm. His fingers trembled around the grip of his sword.

“What do you know?” Genji demanded. His voice wavered, with anger or misery or a mix of both, Gabriel couldn’t be sure. The risk of having his throat cut was there, but wasn’t as high as what it could have been: as McCree would say, ‘it wasn’t his first rodeo’.

“What do you know about _anything_?” Genji repeated, his voice rising close to a shout. “You brought me here, you turned me into a weapon, you took away _everything_ —”

“I took _nothing_ from you!” Gabriel bellowed. Genji flinched, shrinking back, but didn’t withdraw the sword.

“You had _nothing_ when you came here: no clan, no brother, not even half your limbs intact. You really want to try and put that on me, boy?” Gabriel demanded.

Genji tensed.

Gabriel continued, relentless. “You want someone to blame for your misery, boy? You want revenge? You’ll never find it here, and you’ll never have it with the way you act. If you think we’re going to let you loose to finish what they started yourself, you’re more of an idiot than I thought you were, boy.”

“Stop calling me _boy_!”

“Then damn well step forward and show me there’s a man under that armour. Stop running away because life went to hell for you. Life goes to hell sometimes. That’s how life is, and sometimes all you’ve got when it does is the fact that you’re still breathing. Well, you’re still breathing. You’ve still got a heart in your chest. You’ve still got a mind of your own, so step forward from behind that playboy mask you wear and _do_ something with it. Step forward, or run away.”

“What do you want from me?” Genji whispered, frozen in place.

“Make a fucking choice,” Gabriel said. “Ask yourself if a weapon has the power of choice. You think a gun decides where to shoot, you think a sword chooses who to cut down?”

His eyes flicked down to the sword at his throat pointedly before snapping back to Genji’s. They stared at each other in silence for several long minutes until, finally, Genji dropped the sword and his gaze, stepping back.

“Athena,” Gabriel said. “Run the simulation again.”

_Bio-detectors identify an additional presence within simulation boundaries. Continue?_

“Yep.”

“What are you doing?” Genji demanded as the door slammed shut, the warning light of an active simulation flashing above it.

Gabriel shrugged. “Giving you a choice.”

The dummy bots jerked into life in their stations and locked onto the two men in the room. While no simulation used live ammunition, the energy blanks they fired stung. Genji looked between him and the bots calculatingly, before pivoting on his heel and stepping forward to meet them.

A dummy bot crashed into the opposite wall seconds later. Genji sent another skidding along the floor. A third followed it. Gabriel allowed himself a small smile as the next five minutes saw a rapid succession of repeat performance, the bots deactivating under the blade or shuriken. At the end of the simulation, all the bots lay scattered across the floor.

“Well, would you look at that?” Gabriel said, retrieving his datapad as the results pinged up on screen.

“You favour your left side,” he said as Genji approached. “Is that an issue with the cybernetics?”

“No,” Genji replied after a pause, looking away. “That was always… something I had to work on.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time for that in training. Head out.”

Genji began to say something, when his eyes fell on the thin red mark on Gabriel’s neck. He winced, embarrassed. “I apologize, Commander Reyes. I should not have done that.”

“Done what? I cut myself shaving this morning,” Gabriel replied, relishing the look of shock in Genji’s eyes. He jerked his head at the door. “Get going.”

“I—” Genji began, then shook his head and said nothing more. He started for the door, but stopped and turned to Gabriel, bowing at the waist formally and saying something in Japanese. Gabriel nodded in return, and Genji left without another word. As Gabriel watched him disappear down the corridor, he figured it was a step forward in the right direction.


End file.
